Meditation is the key to any spiritual practice.

Twice a day, twenty minutes a time, and new worlds can open to you.

But how do you meditate?

I’ve been asked this by a lot of people.

Here is a section from Alice Bailey’s book, FROM INTELLECT TO INTUITION. It was written in 1932, and it’s a classic, as are many of Alice Bailey’s books.

Here’s her step by step guide to beginning a meditation practice…

MEDITATION FORM To Develop Concentration Stages

1. The attainment of physical comfort and control.

2. The breathing is noted as rhythmic and regular.

3. Visualization of the threefold lower self (physical, emotional and mental) as a. In contact with the soul. b. As a channel for soul energy, through the medium of the mind, direct to the brain. From thence the physical mechanism can be controlled.

4. Then a definite act of concentration, calling in the will. This involves an endeavor to keep the mind unmoving upon a certain form of words, so that their meaning is clear in our consciousness, and not the words themselves, or the fact that we are attempting to meditate.

5. Then say, with focussed attention —“More radiant than the sun, purer than the snow, subtler than the ether is the Self, The spirit within me. I am that Self. That Self am I.”

6. Concentrate now upon the words: “Thou God seest me.” The mind is not permitted to falter in its concentration on their significance, meaning, and implications.

7. Then, with deliberation bring the concentration work to a close, and say —again with the mind re-focussed on the underlying ideas —the following concluding statement: “There is a peace that passeth understanding; it abides in the hearts of those who live in the Eternal. There is a power that maketh all things new; it lives and moves in those who know the Self as one.”

Jennifer uses another more advanced practice, and I will post that at another time.

We have different types of hamburgers.

We have McDonalds

We have Hungry Jacks.

We have In ‘n Out Burgers.

We have Fatburgers.

They’re all hamburgers, but they’re different.

They appeal to different tastes, they sit at different price points, they come with different sides.

Some appeal to the young, some to Baby Boomers, some spend a lot on marketing, some are popular through word of mouth.

But still, they’re all just hamburgers.

They’re all essentially the same, selling the same thing – meat in a bun.

They’re like religions.

Religions are all different. They appeal to different cultures. To different beliefs. To different nationalities and historical predelictions.

But they’re all selling the same thing, which is God.

You don’t need to go to Maccas, or Hungry Jacks, or Fatburger, to eat a hamburger.

You can make one yourself.

And you can make it just the way you like it, not the way a fast food joint makes it.

The fast food joint makes it for the masses, to appeal to a broad based clientele. The more generic it is, the more popular it’s likely to be.

The fast food joints want to appeal to the masses, because that’s how they make money. They don’t mind that their hamburgers are generic.

But you might not like your hamburger generic.

You might like it different, to your particular taste – with those special things that make it appealing to you.

Chilli sauce, Turkish bread, avocado spread instead of butter, pineapple…

Whatever.

It’s still a hamburger. But it’s the way you like it.

That’s spirituality.

Versus religion,

Which is a Fatburger.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

In the past 6 days, Jennifer and I have driven more than 2000kms to go visit The Crystal Castle just outside Mullumbimby, (north coast of NSW) – with our good friends Ken & Angie, and Donna & Greg.

All are Camino buddies from when we walked the Portuguese Camino two years ago.

On the drive up, Jennifer and I had stopped at a beach called Arrawarra – a beautiful deserted beach north of Coffs Harbour. Late in the afternoon we went for a walk on the beach, with storm clouds overhead, and the sea white-capped.

Jennifer stopped and picked up a small white stone. It was a smooth oval shape, and it was almost perfectly white. She handed this to me and said it was my soul stone.

I put it in the top pocket of my shirt, and from then on carried it close to my heart.

Cut to:

We went to The Crystal Castle with Ken & Angie, Donna & Greg, and we had a great time. It is a very special place, and one that I would certainly revisit at any opportunity. In fact, we’ve agreed to do it again in a year’s time.

Cut to:

On Sunday morning, on the way back from Mullumbimby I stopped in at Lismore and I did a fabulous interview with a person whom I’d been guided to. His name is Serge Benhayon, he runs an energetic healing centre called Universal Medicine, and he gave me a terrific interview for my PGS intuition film.

He told me the voice I heard that saved my life was my soul’s voice.

Cut to:

This morning. We’re in a motel in Tamworth, about 500kms from Mudgee. I woke up early and re-read a section of Gary Zukav’s book, THE SEAT OF THE SOUL. 

For me, everything comes back to the soul. That’s what WHITE WITCH, BLACK WITCH is all about – will be all about when I finish the series – and that’s what my intuition film is all about. It all comes back to the soul.

Here’s what Zukav says:

The individual unit of evolution is the soul. This perception is new to us because, as a species, we have not before been aware of the existence of the soul. In our religious thoughts we acknowledge what we call the soul, but we have not, until now, taken it seriously enough to consider what the existence of the soul means in terms of everyday experience, in terms of the joys and pains and sorrows and fulfillments that make a human life.

We have not studied the soul, or sought to help it attain what is necessary to its evolution and its health. Because we have been five-sensory, we have focused upon the body and the personality. We have developed an extensive knowledge of the physical apparatus that the soul assumes when it incarnates. We know of amino acids, neurotransmitters, chromosomes, and enzymes, but we do not know of the soul. We do not know how these physical functions serve the soul, or are affected by it.

We seek to cure dysfunction of the body by controlling its environment at the molecular level. In other words, our approach to healing is based upon the perception of power as external. This type of healing can be helpful to the body, but it does not, and cannot, heal at the level of the soul.

Consider that those who are trained in this way are accustomed to learning about Life through the study of dead matter. They seek to learn of Life through the study of carcasses and corpses. Through the study of that which does not have spirit, how can they see spirit? 

Cut to:

Some time later, Jennifer and I are packing up to leave the motel.  I pick up the shirt that I’d been wearing a few days ago and went to put it into my case. I heard something drop out of the pocket and fall to the floor.

I couldn’t see anything on the floor though.

I got on my hands and knees and looked under the bed, and then under a cabinet.

Still I couldn’t see what had fallen out.

I thought maybe it was some small change, and a cleaner would probably find it and have a little $2 windfall.

I packed the shirt away, put some stuff in the car, then I came back to get my small carry-on case that has my computer and leads in it. I’d packed it earlier, and it was on a stand.

I grabbed it and picked it up – but I’d forgotten that I hadn’t zipped it up. Everything fell onto the floor, including my computer.

Now, you have to understand, I never do this. I’m always fastidious about closing latches and zippers, particularly with my luggage. Jennifer is the opposite. She leaves her luggage half open all the time. Drives me nuts. I go around and I close all her bags and cases. I point this out to her and tell her she will lose things if she doesn’t close her bags properly, but she just shrugs and says: There’s no such thing as loss in the Universe. 

Like I said, it drives me nuts.

Anyway, this morning, I’d forgotten to close my case, and everything fell onto the floor. I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened to me.

I picked it all up. And then I wondered if anything had rolled under the bed, or the cabinet. And so once again I got on my hands and knees and peered under the bed, and then the cabinet.

And that’s when I saw it –
The soul stone.

It had fallen out of my shirt pocket and rolled under the cabinet. I hadn’t seen it the first time I looked, but this time I saw it clearly.

If that accident with my case hadn’t happened, I would have driven away without ever finding the stone.

So here’s the thing – you can look at this two ways:

You can use your rational mind and say that it was just co-incidental – a quirk of fate that my bag spilled out – or you can use your spiritual mind and say that it was the Universe once again tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me that it’s there, watching out for me.

All I can say is:
Thanks guys…
I like that stone…

Mullumbimby is a sleepy little town at the back of Byron Bay – just south of the Queensland / New South Wales border.

I remember Mullumbimby in the early 70s, when I used to go surfing up and down that part of the coast. It was a major hippy joint, largely full of dope heads and stoners, everyone wearing tie-dyed cheesecloth and loose elephant print daks from India.

The dread-locked hippies burned incense in their clapped-out rusty Kombis and stole mangoes from trees by the side of the road and for breakfast they ate magic mushrooms, which pretty much set up the rest of the day for them…

Mullumbimby was regularly raided by the cops, and the locals never failed to disappoint.

I drove into Mullumbimby yesterday, after not having visited the place for something like forty years. It’s still a hippy joint, although the hippies have now gone establishment, and run restaurants like The Magic Pot Eatery, or operate Wellness Clinics where you can have your chakras punctured or your bowels cleansed.

I didn’t drive nearly 1000kms though to have my chakras punctured. Nor to have my bowels cleansed, although they probably needed it… especially after that curry the other night…

No, I came for The Crystal Castle.

Jennifer and I have two Camino mates – Greg & Donna – who did the Portuguese Camino tour with us a couple of years back. We’ve remained good friends. and for some time now they’ve been telling us we should come up and visit The Crystal Castle.

Greg & Donna live in Brisbane, and for them it’s a drive of only an hour and a half, so they’ve been to the Crystal Castle many times. They kept raving about the place, so finally we said we’d drive up and make a weekend of it.

What is the Crystal Castle? It’s a magnificent private Botanical Garden full of Tibetan Buddhist stupas, and statues of Hindu gods and goddesses, and…

Crystals.

Big mothers pulsing energy like a stadium rock band…

I wouldn’t say I’m a crystal guy.

I don’t put crystals by my bedside before I go to sleep, like my wife does.
I don’t “recharge” my crystals in the backyard on a full moon, like my wife does.
I don’t use crystals to divine whether I should wash my hair tomorrow or next week, like my wife does.
I don’t place a rose crystal over my heart chakra when I think about Syrian refugees, like my wife does.

For me, crystals fall into the same category as Hobbits.
Except they’re not as hairy.

Crystals and Hobbits, whilst you wouldn’t immediately see a direct correlation, do come from the same gene pool. Gandalf for instance would have been a crystal guy. (Yes, I know, Gandalf was a wizard, not a Hobbit, but he hung around with Hobbits. And wizards are definitely crystal guys.)

I have strayed.

The Crystal Castle is a really cool place.

It was established thirty years ago by a bloke named Naren King, who had a business importing crystals. He went to a New Years Eve party on a 25 hectare property at the back of Mullumbimby – and immediately wanted to buy the unique building that was on the site.

He found a bank manager willing to stake him in a venture that would have him establishing magnificent gardens, and building huge statues of religious iconic figures, in amongst grounds studded with gigantic crystals.

Thirty years on it’s a thriving business, with hundreds of people from around the world visiting each day, paying an entrance fee of $22 to wander around these tranquil gardens.

There’s a spiral with a large crystal chair in the middle, there’s a labyrinth based on an ancient design, there’s a beautiful bamboo grove at the end of which is a statue of Vishnu and Garuda – and there is a massive Buddha in a lotus pond.

I’ve gotta say, I’m not a crystal guy – did I mention that before? – but I liked this place. There was a very powerful energy there.

And I thought it was wonderful that such a New Age hippy enterprise would attract so many people from all walks of life, from all over the world.

They hold yoga and meditation classes, and workshops where you can use crystals to clean your subtle body, and you can have a photo taken of your auras which sets you back $45. There’s also a fabulous bookstore and cafe, and of course a shop where you can buy all sorts of crystals ranging in price from a couple of bucks to $30,000.

The $30,000 crystal was tempting, I have to say, but I’m not a crystal guy…. And it wouldn’t have fitted in the back of the car. That’s what I told the lady in the store, anyway.

I thought about buying a smaller and somewhat cheaper crystal, which would have been more easily transportable, but then I figured that if I did, I would have to put it out in the backyard on a full moon to recharge it. And I have a hard enough time motivating myself to put out the garbage on a Wednesday night.

We did spend some money at the store though. Jennifer had a photo taken of her auras. She was told that her auras showed she was creative.

When I heard that, I decided not to invest $45 and have my auras photographed. I was concerned that they might show that I was un-creative.

And that would have shattered me.

Last week I went up to Brisbane to speak to the young students who are about to start their film courses at the Queensland University of Technology.

When I was their age, I told them, there were no film schools at all. In 1970 in Brisbane, where I did my schooling, the thought of being a film director was as remote a possibility as being an astronaut.

Now of course there are film schools everywhere. Film is even taught in primary schools. And there are very real career paths for those wishing to join the industry.

This doesn’t make it any easier. Because ultimately, whether you have a career in film doesn’t come down to your education, it comes down to your passion.

How much do you want it?
What are you prepared to sacrifice?
How hard are you prepared to work?
How much rejection can you withstand?

I was asked to address a large group of students first off, and tell them how I got into the industry. And so this is what I told them…

I matriculated from high school and was admitted into Medical School. Medicine. I didn’t particularly want to be a doctor, but both my parents were dentists and so it seemed like the logical thing to do.

From a very early age though I’d been taking photographs and writing stories. Along with my brother Bob, who was a wonderful photographer, we contributed stories to various magazines, even while we were still in high school.

Separately, I was a mad keen surfer. Our parents had a beach house on the Gold Coast, and from my early teenage years my brother and I had surfed. Seriously surfed.

We also became very accomplished surf photographers, and I would write stories and we would get them published in Surfing World magazine, which in the early 70s was the premiere colour surf mag in the country. We became the magazine’s Queensland contributors.

I didn’t like studying medicine. I wasn’t a particularly good student – especially given that I was spending most of my time either taking photos, writing stories, or surfing. My heart wasn’t in being a doctor. I was doing Medicine because it was what I thought my parents wanted me to do.

Of all the difficult subjects, including anatomy, the subject I hated most was biochemistry. I just couldn’t make sense of it. And when the results of the end of year exams came out, I found that I had passed all the subjects except biochemistry. I hadn’t failed, I had got what’s called a “supp,” or a supplementary pass.

What that meant was that I had to re-sit the exam in about 6 weeks time, in mid January.

In Australia, our major holiday time is in our summer, from just before Christmas through to the end of January. So in getting a supp, that meant I would have to study biochemistry through most of my holidays.

It sucked.

But if I wanted to pass the year, that’s what I had to do.
And so that’s what I did.

This was complicated by the fact that some weeks earlier, I had picked up a new surfboard the day my exams finished. This was a board that I had designed specifically for the waves that I surfed in my home break. The design of the board was the culmination of many years of surfing and refinement – of knowing the waves I surfed, knowing how I surfed, and knowing what i needed from my board.

I’d been really excited when I picked up my board, because I thought I would have the whole summer to surf with this new design – with a board that would fit me, my waves, and my style perfectly. But it was not to be, because I had to study for this damn biochemistry supp.

So all through Christmas, and into the New Year I studied, and I didn’t go surfing, because I wanted to pass the exam so I could pass the year and continue with my med studies.

And in mid January I felt I had got on top of my studies enough for me to hit the surf. So I went surfing, and the board was a disaster. It wasn’t anything like I’d been expecting. It was unresponsive, it was clunky, it was all wrong.

I couldn’t get it working like my previous board. And this new board was meant to be custom made just for the way I liked to surf. But it was a plank.

The day came for the exam, for me to sit for the supp. I was down at the beach, and I woke up, and it was one of those perfect days of sunshine and blue skies. Slight off-shore breeze, the water clear as crystal, and the surf 3-4ft and just magic.

I took the board out and after a couple of waves, the board just clicked into place. I can’t really describe what happened, but it was as though a veil had been lifted, and the board suddenly had ceased to be a surfboard, and was now an extension of my thought.

Wherever I wanted to be on the wave, the board took me there. All I had to do was think a manoeuvre, and the board would take me there, would do what I wanted.

It was everything I had wanted from the board, and more. It was the most perfect board on the most perfect day in the most perfect waves.

And I had to get out of the water and drive back to Brisbane to sit for this damn exam.

The exam started at 2pm. I had to be out of the water by 12pm to get back in time. At five minutes to twelve I caught my last wave in. For some reason, and I don’t know why, all the other board riders had gone in and I was the only one out in the water. And the waves were unbelievable.

But I paddled in, and walked up the beach, and put my board on the car’s board racks. I still remember this very clearly. I had to be careful tying the board down, because the fibreglass was still soft, it being a brand new board.

I tied the board to the racks, and as I did so, I looked out at the surf. There was a set coming in – several waves, one after the other – and there was no-one out. There was a gentle offshore breeze that was feathering the surface, and holding up the waves as they peeled off mechanically left and right. And there was no-one out.

I remember this moment very clearly, because this is the moment my life changed forever.

I remember looking at this set come through – each wave more perfect than the one before. I remember looking at my board, still glistening with seawater tied to the roof of my car, and then I looked down at my biochemistry text book on the ledge of the back seat.

I looked at the textbook, I looked at the board, and I looked at the waves.

And I said to myself: Fuckit.

That was the moment I decided that I didn’t want to be a doctor.

I took the board off the car, I raced down the beach and I surfed until sundown.

I missed the exam and I failed the year.

And then I had to face my parents, and more importantly I had to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I figured I now had to make a decision based on what I really loved doing, rather than what others might expect me to do.

And so I decided to shift across to an Arts/Law course, majoring in journalism. And so I became a journalist, and from there I started making documentaries, and I realised that here was a way I could combine my love of writing and photography.

And eventually I made my way to making feature films.
Movies.

I told this story to the assembled students last week – and by the looks on their faces some were enthralled, some were amused, some were aghast.

I told them that I would never have gone on to make films if I hadn’t made that decision that day to throw in Med and go surfing. And now when I think back on that series of events, I realised that I had simply followed my inner voice – my PGS.

And that’s why I’m now doing what I’m doing, and loving every day of it.

I’ve been off air on this blog this last little while. I apologise, but I’ve been busy, and distracted – and I only really like to post stuff if there’s a reason to.

The year has kicked off busy for me.

For starters I published the first book in the WHITE WITCH BLACK WITCH series – and sales on that have been steadily building, which is pleasing. Here it is if you want to take a look – WHITE WITCH BLACK WITCH

By the way, those that I gave free copies to – how about a review on Amazon guys… That was the deal, remember? But only if you like it!! Don’t post a review if you think it’s crap!

🙂

The tour side of things has also begun with a bang. The Portuguese Camino tour is now closed, with fifteen people coming with us from Porto to Santiago in early May.

We’ve also been approached by a foodie group to mount a food tour in Mexico later in the year – and so we’re putting that together at the moment.

Then there’s the Mother Ganga Spiritual Tour which we’ll be doing again in September. Looking forward to that!

Mother Ganga Spiritual tour of India – Sept 2016

The Romantic Road Christmas tour in Bavaria is now almost full – it looks like we have eight people already booked for that one, and we’ll close that off at twelve.

On other fronts, as some of you know I’m an Adjunct Professor of Screen Studies at the Queensland University of Technology, and for the past several years I’ve been in a joint venture with QUT to create a large scale online educational resource. Just before Christmas I delivered them a beta version of the first couple of modules – which they have since reviewed – positively, I’m happy to say – and so that’s now starting to gather steam.

But my real focus has been PGS – my intuition film.

I’ve secured a post production investment deal from the country’s largest post house, and so we begin editing on March 14th. I’ve been working on the script, which has taken all my attention and time – and this is the real reason why I’ve been MIA on this blog.

I’ll keep filming while I’m editing – and in fact there is a very real chance that we might be going to Columbia to film with a remote tribe high in the mountains. They have particularly fascinating spiritual practices – and because they’ve been cut off from civilisation they have a direct heritage line back to the Aztecs. That trip should be amazing, if it comes off…

And in June I’m returning to Dallas Texas – (Joni, if you’re reading this, YES, I’m coming back for more Cosmic Rays!) – but there will be more filming to do in the States, and by that stage of editing I’ll know exactly what I need to pick up.

As busy as it seems to be, I have plenty of time. Time to walk, time to read, time to think. And the reason I have time is because my life isn’t complicated by decisions. I make decisions now totally intuitively, and I trust the process and surrender to the outcome.

Man o man it makes life easier.
Way less complicated.

For a start, it takes the anxiety out of living.
And you make decisions fast. No messing around.
You default always to happiness.

I have a good friend who is desperately unhappy. He’s in a very high powered and well paying job that he hates, he has teenage children that are problematic (what teenage kid isn’t!), he never has time for himself, is always stressed, and whenever I call him for a chat I always hear how rotten his life is.

We have choices.
We choose to live the life we lead.
We aren’t the victims of life.
We are the victims of our own choices. 

This guy feels trapped. He feels trapped financially, and yet if he made the big decision to sell up his house and his investment properties and all the stuff he’s accumulated and step away from the materialism that he craves, then he would find he had sufficient money to live a simple, albeit frugal life, but a happy life.

His only happiness comes from buying things.
But that wears thin very quickly.

We constantly subsume our inner voice. Our inner voice knows what’s best for us. But we ignore it. And do what we think is right. This guy is doing what he thinks is right, by holding down this high powered job, going on a couple of international vacations each year, buying a new car whenever he feels depressed, and putting his kids through expensive private schools. But he goes to work each day miserable.

After talking to this fellow recently, I wondered when he would ever feel happy. Would he feel happy once he’d retired? In twenty years time? He would retire with some serious accumulated wealth. But what if he keeled over and died the day he retired?

It happens.

Happiness is something we have to embrace now. Not in ten or twenty years time, not even next month or next year. And we can do this, if we shift into a state of awareness, if we honestly appraise our lives, and if we have the courage to make choices to fundamentally change things.

Don’t whinge about your life.
Change it.
And if you’re not prepared to change it, then stop your whingeing.
You have no right to whinge, because that’s the life you’ve chosen.

I learned on the Camino to ask, when confronted with a difficult decision: What’s the worst that can happen? Invariably, when I considered the worst, it wasn’t that bad.

Same with making choices –

It might seem really scary to change something about your life that you’ve clung to, out of fear most probably. But if you let go of that fear, if you choose to change that one thing, you might actually start feeling happy…

But it takes guts.
Are you that brave?

I love walking.

I’m walking quite a bit at the moment, getting fit again for the Portuguese Camino tour which is coming up in May.

Jennifer and I are taking 16 New Zealand carers from Porto through to Santiago. Carers are people who care for someone – perhaps someone elderly, or with health issues.

I’m sure these carers are quite extraordinary individuals, and I’m looking forward to spending time with them, and hearing their stories.

But the walking I’m doing at the moment is less about training, and more that I just simply love walking. Most days now I’m walking 12kms -15kms, with 20kms or so on the weekend. I’m averaging between 85kms-100kms a week.

I love the simplicity of it.
I love the easy grace of a stride.
I love the regularity of my breath.

I love getting out into the bush, or amongst the wineries and the vineyards – and seeing flocks of cockatoos or kangaroos and sometimes a snake slithering away.

I love the smell of wildflowers.
I love the chill of an early morning.
I love hearing the sound of my boots on the track.
The only sound, other than sometimes wind in the trees.

There is a road I take which leads to the vineyards. People wave at me as they drive past. I wave back. Often I don’t know who they are. Or I can’t see them properly because of the sun reflecting off their windows. It doesn’t matter. I still wave.

I wave when an oncoming driver gives me space. Sometimes their cars veer onto the other side of the road. I always wave to them, for their courtesy.

Sometimes I see friends driving past, and every now and then they stop, and we have a chat. There have been times, on a long walk when I’m a fair way out of town, when a concerned driver will stop and ask if I want a lift. I laugh, and say No Thanks. 

I walk the same route every day. And often at the same time each day. And so people get to know me. On Sunday I take a longer route which loops around the town.

I walk the same route because I’m competitive. With myself. I like to know how I’m going from day to day – comparing my times, my pace and heartbeat, with previous days. I wear a Fitbit so I track everything. And then later on my computer I look at the stats.

But walking isn’t about stats.
It’s about feeling.
And seeing and hearing.
It’s about connecting to the elemental side of life.

I like to see how the light changes, how the vegetation changes. Today I noticed that some of the vine leaves are starting to turn golden. The first sign of autumn coming.

I like walking the same route because strangely, I see something new each day. Even though I’ve walked this route for years. But every time I seem to see something different.

And I listen to audiobooks. Because each walk is about two and a half hours, I use this time to “read.” It’s a valuable time for me. It enriches me in so many ways.

Walking grounds me.

It grounds me so I can fly.

I love it.

These are by no means Steve McCurry’s best portraits – he’s one of the best portrait photographers in the world, if not THE best – but they’re still pretty damn amazing…

I’ve just posted the Romantic Road Christmas Tour page on the Gone Tours website –

Here it is, with all the details –

Romantic Road Christmas Tour / Bavaria, Germany

It’s going to be an amazing tour.

Jennifer and I travelled the Romantic Road a couple of years ago, in late November, It has to be one of the most beautiful road trips I’ve ever done – particularly as we’ll be there this time to visit the amazing Bavarian Christmas Markets.

Here’s a description of the markets from the Bavarian website –

Christmas markets in Bavaria

If you’re interested, please contact me –

bill@gonetours.com

I guess I can call myself an intuitive…

At least, I now live each moment of my life intuitively.
And have done so for quite some time.

To use my parlance, I follow my PGS.
My Personal Guidance System.

A small example –

Yesterday it was raining when I woke up. Raining quite heavily. I never look at weather forecasts. Never. I always use my PGS to tell me how the day is going to unfold, and how I should prepare.

I didn’t know what the forecast was for the day – and Jennifer and I had to walk 4kms to a business meeting in the centre of the Sydney CBD.

I asked my guys, and they said it’s not going to rain.
And it didn’t rain.

By the time I was ready to walk and I stepped outside, the rain had virtually stopped. There was a slight drizzle, but it was refreshing.

The walk was glorious.

The business meeting was with a financier whom I’d been introduced to through a New York based documentary maker. I’d met this filmmaker briefly while she was on a visit to Sydney, and given her some advice about financing and distribution. She in turn very generously gave me an introduction to her funding source here in Australia.

That doesn’t happen often in this business – and I was very grateful.

As most of you know who frequent this blog, I’m currently making a major international film on intuition, called PGS – INTUITION IS YOUR PERSONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM. 

So Jennifer and I met this financier lady, and there was an immediate connection, as if it was a meeting of old souls from past lives.

She’s currently doing some philanthropic work with aboriginal people in Queensland, and I mentioned that I wanted to get more of an indigenous perspective for the film, and could she recommend someone I could talk to.

She told me immediately I had to go to Columbia.

Columbia? I asked. You mean Columbia South America? 

She did.

Turns out she’s doing some major work there with some indigenous people, who have a special connection to the intuitive realm. She explained this to me, and immediately I felt we had to go. I don’t know why, or when this will happen, or what it will mean to the film, but I just felt this is something I should do.

This is how this film is being made – totally intuitively.

I immediately trusted that the meeting with this financier lady was meant to be – that she had come into my life for a purpose, not necessarily to finance the film, but to aid me in some way. Perhaps going to Columbia is the reason I was meant to meet her.

I left the meeting, and checked my emails. I had an email from Kurt Koontz, who has become a good friend. He wrote the very popular Camino memoir book, A MILLION STEPS.  In the email, he asked me what I knew about South America, because he was thinking of going…

In the evening Jennifer and I had dinner with the film’s editor, Rishi Shukla, and the film’s sound design team, Wayne and Libby Pashley.

If any of you have seen the two sizzle reels for the film, well, Rishi cut them. Here they are again:

SIZZLE

PRODUCTION UPDATE 2

Wayne and Libby are the best sound design team in the country, and amongst the best in the world. There recent credits include MAD MAX FURY ROAD, THE GREAT GATSBY, and every film that Bill Bennett has made in recent history… haha.

They’re great friends and supreme crafts-folk. And their contribution to the film will be extraordinary, I know.

We had a terrific dinner, and talked through the creative aspects of the film – because we start editing in about a month – on March 14th. At the start of this year I felt, again intuitively, that even though shooting hasn’t finished, it’s important to get the film into post production, to enable me to see what I’ve got, and what I need to get.

Again, it was an intuitive response.

At the meeting yesterday morning with the financier lady, I told her that I was just the tiller man on this film – and my job was to keep the vessel, the film, away from the shoals. I explained that this is the first film I’ve ever made where my main aim it to “stay out of the way,” and not impose my will.

I also explained that this is the first film I’ve made where I am not riddled with anxiety. I trust in the process, I trust in my guidance, and I know that only the best will happen, whatever that might be.

Sometimes rejection is ultimately the best that can happen. The Secret was rejected by Channel 9, and went on to become a global cultural phenomenon. That wouldn’t have happened if Channel 9 hadn’t initially rejected the film.

I have learned to surrender. 

And that gives me unbelievable strength.
That makes me unstoppable.

PGS First editorial meeting. From L to R – Bill Bennett, Rishi Shukla, Jennifer, Libby Pashley, Wayne Pashley.